his mother insisted upon that. you have two people, john paul and ronald reagan, that respected the word. >> picking up where we said earlier -- the political man has to be able to reflect and address a multitude of people who are not themselves philosophers. that experience with a mass audience certainly sensitized him to the question of what would be understood out there. john paul's sotry -- story and reagan's -- let me take a look at it and do some editing. that experience cultivated their sense of that part of the task of the statesmen. >> all of you chicago cubs fans

-- >> not i. >> i'm not either. [laughter] ronald reagan, using the telegraph wires, called the chicago cubs games. he would take the wire copy and create the picture of that game in the words, powerful words. this is one of my favorite people here on campus and the as a wonderful english accent. -- he has a wonderful english accent. >> nobody recognizes reagan as a brilliant labor leader who fought for the actors industry -- and the screen actors guild. since the title of this conference is "the future of american culture,"i'm sorry to

say i think the panel has rather missed out on discussing postmodernism. we sort of implied that we can go back to the modernist in the mind. i would like all of the panel to have a shot at attempting whether christians can relate to post modernists and what did they see the future having anything to do with the development of postmodernism or what some new aspect of the velocity of political and portugal -- philosophy of political and spiritual communication? >> who would like to be the first? >> i will be the seed that falls to the ground. the terms modernist and post moderate are so aggravating. i will say this.

whether you call it post-modern or pre modern -- premodern, there needs to be a move back in the direction to family and marital dyad. -- diad as something more than a contract. there is a large range of human relationships that are covenant will in character -- covenantal in character, not merely contractual. there was a wonderful explication of the joke about why it is no longer funny in a world in which the resumption of the sacredness of the marital model was a passive assumption. that is one crack at it, but i

think, if my modernity over modernism, one means -- i think postmodernism is often just modernity -- the continuation of modernity by other means. it is a dishonest way of important and unrounded romanticism -- importing an ungrounded romanticism. i tend to see the two from that point of view. >> and interest sociologist says that what we call post modernity is really hyper- maternity. -- modernity. the relativism that we have

spoken about anger to rise as post-modern -- and characterized as a post-modern -- he is saying that with all sorts of assumptions from hundreds or thousands of years of classical christian thought teaming him from drinking too far for himself -- keeping him from thinking too far for himself, the demand to think for yourself, loosed from that cultural boundary, and aided by the rise of this gospel of authenticity, and the notion of human desires -- it is still a brief critique or analysis of the freud -- of freud.

he was living in a time when the absence of any fixed reality -- something that was really known to be really real -- was creating a crisis. part of what he suggested was that human desire can be understood as really real. human desire becomes the only objective reality left. what we call post-modern is, i think, an intense evocation of the modern -- an intensification of the modern. there are a lot of christians who are voguishly post-modern in a very uncritical and careless way. they have, partly out of the desire to be fashionable, embraced some aspects of the

critique of modernity which they should have embraced, but they have misunderstood the nature of the critique and they do not know what course they have hitched their wagons to -- horse they have hitched their wagons to. we ought to be properly postmodern in a sense that we understand what it has dispensed with. it is safe to say it dispensed with the assumptions that revelation and tradition would cohere with the exercise of reason. that is not something pose maternity -- post-modernity has fixed. i do not want to return to some high-modernist reality. >> my top was much in the

direction of a sort of -- talk was much in the direction of a sort of individual getting government off his back. i completely affiliate myself with what he said about the poverty of the individual. this will take longer to explicate. the individualism of modern life that is so pernicious is intimately related to the breakdown of the family and these media institutions. that is what allan is talking about. i cannot describe exactly how the process will work, but to eliminate those, to have interference with these national institutions -- they would show themselves to have remarkable restorative power. but i would recommend bill -- >> i would recommend bill's book on that as well. >> what i prefer to call the natural family has been under stress before.

g. k. chesterton, about 100 years ago, looking at the family system under stress, commented that the family was the only true anarchist institution. he meant it was the only institution that was older than the state and more natural than the state. he said it was capable of internal renewal -- eternal renewal because it was rooted in your earnings of the human heart -- yearnings of the human heart. he would have said postmodernism is so much flimflam. >> a final reflection and i will then leave it to jean. >> the terms of modernist and post-are very loose -- post modernist are very loose. the ideal of the self, for

example, -- the self-made man who loves his maker. over much. that invites a kind of narcissism, almost an entropy of the self, where everything circles around the orbit of the self. as i mentioned in my presentation, one is incapable of acknowledging indebtedness, whether to a maker other than the self or to previous generations. that deepens that notion with many postmodern assumptions. i think postmodernism existed, if you will, before the label emerged. that is to say the notion that there are no solid truce, no

ground on which we can stand, that everything is shaky -- it has been around for a long time. i remember when one of our daughters was coming home from public school in massachusetts some years ago. they had been working on a variety of things. she had worksheets saying there are facts and then there are values. the values, opinions -- the emotive part and everyone has his or her own opinions and there are a narrow set of facts that we can all agree on. this leads to a climax one day. i was chastising her about something and she said, that it is just your opinion. [laughter] i said, suppose that someone argued that we should go back to

slavery. what would you say about that? what do not want to say that is wrong? she was clearly troubled. she said, well, i think it is wrong, but it would just be his opinion. kids were being taught that there is no solid ground on which to stand. that was well before we had the french theorist flooding into the academyies. those trends have been around for a long time and it is going to take a lot of effort to and careful thought and reason to try to, if you will, restore the notion that there are truths that can be discerned and that we can share. it is not just this cacophony of clashing opinions. >> charles, ken, hadley all want

to speak. in that order. a benediction. >> he wants to take up the offering. [laughter] >> often this thing when -- often the distinction between post-modern and moderate is the distinction between -- and modernism is the distinction between knowing facts and values in a scientific and objective way. post audit -- postmodernism's as facts themselves are constructions that we put together -- postmodernism says the facts themselves are constructions that we put together. we cannot know anything by the use of unassisted reason alone,

and therefore, our only recourse is god. someone we can come to know extra-rationally or non- rationally. the problem with that move -- why is god not simply about you just like something else -- just like everything else is? -- why is god not simply of value -- a value, just like everything else is? he exists in a stylistic world where you as -- where he is as much your creations as you are his. what is above reason becomes as frivolous as the pretensions of reason to know something. the old approach suggests that reason cannot know both facts and virtues or moral commandments, but that reason

can know something. what makes got amazing is that what he is and what he knows is over and above what we can no by nature. -- can know by nature. without that, the danger is that god becomes your value. >> "the abolition of man" anticipate a lot of these problems -- "the abolition of man" anticipates a lot of these problems and it is (link dawson -- and it is a perennially important book. >> he was very present. -- president -- prescient. >> do you have your ushers ready? [laughter]

>> the seven talks have contained strands that have argued all day against the postmodern as logic -- pulls modernist -- post-modernist logic. the deep fallacy in things like joe biden, john kerry, and others, that they have this objection to abortion as a rigid -- as a religious conviction, but they cannot impose their private belief. it was not communal. it was not based on any truth of embryology or any reasoning apart from their cells. the only way to deal with that is to do pieces on it to expose it.

i would like to stick up for myself. there are no moral truths or absolute truths, which is how we've understand constitutional freedom now. we have freedom because there are no moral truths to constrain us. lincoln said that that doctrine of the rightness of self- government was absolutely and eternally true, grounded in something enduring in the nature of human beings which made it unfit for them to -- the way god may rule horses and men. that nature subsists. now, if you say that there are no truths, and dogmatic relativists who insists that

insists that relativism is true -- if there are no moral truths, there are no moral truths that underlie the commitment to constitutionalism itself. then it is only contingent in true -- contingently true. lincoln said, drawing on proverbs, award simply spoken is like an apple of gold spoken in silver. the constitution was made for the union, not the union for the constitution. the union began with the articulation of that first principle -- all men are created equal. the rise to an understanding of the rifle and wrongful ways of which humans might be governed

-- to the rightful and wrongful ways of which humans might be governed. they will still be true when we reassemble for reagan's symposium next. [applause] >> we shall take that up lost as applause for you -- applause as applause for you, the audience. i would invite all of you, i fyou -- if you have suggestions for topics for next year, please let us know. once the decision has been made , we will solicit ideas for speakers. bear that in mind and let us know. we want to thank our seven

outstanding speakers. charles asked to get on an airplane to fly to los angeles. why anybody would want to do that -- [laughter] >> i am insulted by his attack on california. i am leaving. [laughter] >> having worked with each of the symposia, this has been a remarkable group. the chemistry is fantastic. their presentations that we've seen and experienced. thanks to everyone for making this, for me, a really wonderful day. i bid all of you godspeed. >> thank you. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> this year's c-span2 studentcam competition asked middle and high school students produced a documentary focusing on one of the country's strengths or a challenge the country is facing. here is one of the third-place winners. >> there are indications that driving while testing may have played a factor in a deadly california train collision last month. >> officers say a teenager was text messaging while she crashed head-on. both were killed. >> he pulled out his cell phone and started testing. not just for a few seconds. traffic ahead is at a dead stop. the driver of this city bus sped down the road with something

else occupying his attention. >> car crashes are the number one cause of dath -- death for teens, more than drugs, disease, and guns. ♪ >> i put my hand over the steering wheel wheel so that i can see the road and see the screen. >> yes, i text and drive. i know it is a bad habit, but sometimes, actually more than sometimes, i do it. i tended to drive with my knees, which i know is really bad. it is all green lights. so bad. >> i would say i send a text

message every other time i am driving, if not more. i probably, a couple while driving. >> when you're behind the wheel, all of your attention needs to be on of the road. text messages and sell calls can wait to -- cell phone calls can wait. tried to understand there is nothing worth -- try to understand there is no message that cannot wait and is worth losing your life over. >> i cannot understand them. text before you leave or when you get there. leave your cell phone off in the car. ♪ >> one morning, i left for work.

on my way to work, i made a choice and decision to text and drive, something that i had done many times before that day. i was sending and receiving text messages when i steered across the center line and struck another car. in this other car, there were two cremen who were both killed on impact -- two men that were fathers, husbands, the cared for their families and wanted the best for them. because of my choice, i changed the lives of these families in my life forever -- and my life forever. it has been really hard for me. it is something i would like to

speak out about to help make -- help people so they do not make the same decision that i made. >> a law has to be enacted to protect people from ourselves. we say we only do it occasionally or when it is really necessary. the urgency of the moment causes us to make that poor judgment as to when it is ok. all it takes a second for bad things to happen. >> drinking and driving is against the law, too, but people still do it. if it was enforced and there

were consequences for people that were risking safety, it would certainly cut down a little bit. >> i honestly think it would stop people. i would not do it if it was against the law. i know it is really dangerous, but there is nothing to stop me. it is terrible. if there was a law, i think that would help -- it would stop a lot of people. >> if there is anything anyone could do that would stop it -- you have to think about who is going to look at this and actually be the big people who are going to pull people over. how obvious is it that people are driving and texting? >> if there was a law, i definitely would stop. it would make all of the roads

safer. >> i think people would definitely volatile law if the consequences were harsh enough -- and definitely follow the law if the consequences for russia. there should be incentives or disincentives to make sure people are not taxed -- texting while driving. >> a british public service announcement was released a few months ago document and the possible outcomes of text and while driving -- texting while driving. it has not been as widely distributed in the u.s. because of its graphic nature. ♪ >> a lot of teenagers in my school just think it will not happen to them, that it is not wrong, and that they are somehow better at doing it.

they still have to take their eyes off the road and look at their cell phone. our chapter has focused on making that something you should not do. putting yourself on away is not -- putting your cell phone away is not lame. >> i have had a few stairs -- a few scares. it would really scare me for a while. i would maybe stop for a month or two, but then just forget and keep doing it. >> when you are behind the wheel of a car, you're responsible not only for yourself, but for the people around you. i mean, this is our

responsibility. it is not our right. we take it for granted. you should keep everyone safe, not just yourself. >> to see all the winning entries in this year's competition, visit studentcam.org. >> governor mitch daniels, director of the office of management and budget, talked about the economic impact of the health care bill on indiana and other states. guest: we continue to discover new costs. it is not just cost that will be pushed to the governor perry we will the hit -- to the governor. we will be hit with a big bill because there and a compass eigh